Sonnet 71
by Ryyne
Summary: But maybe some promises, Remus reflected, were never meant to be kept. Oneshot RLSB slash. Slight HBP spoilers. A tradition can sometimes mean so much more than one would ever expect.


Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling is the proud owner of both Remus and Sirius. I just like to borrow them every once in a while.

**_Sonnet 71_**

The smudged and wrinkled small square of paper dropped flatly into the desk drawer, and was then pushed to the back, desperately, aggressively. The young – no, not young, not anymore, not for over fourteen years – man made sure the note was as far back as he could manage, and hidden beneath piles of bills unpaid, letters unanswered, and empty cigarette packs. White ash, as white as the man's pale skin, dropped unceremoniously on the parchment, unnoticed by the man holding the cigarette loosely between his shaking fingers.

"It's not possible," he muttered, and added in a hoarse, uncertain whisper: "You bastard." He hesitated for a moment, fingers lightly brushing the smooth surface of the drawer.

With a tight, authoritative click, it was shut closed.

He walked into the kitchen. _Hey, Moony. Want some bacon? _A lick of the lips and a perky grin._ No, I don't like pork; you know that, P –_

He grabbed the counter quickly and bent his head so his forehead rested on the cold, hard tile. He hadn't eaten well for months, and the kitchen smelled unusually blank. Surprising, considering his canine sense of smell. He didn't like the blank smell at all; it told him nothing, it was nothing. There was no story, even though more than he ever could have imagined had happened. It was completely surreal.

Falling through the Veil: there was no smell, no taste, no vision of death. It was a disappearance. It wasn't _real_, the wolf insisted. No metallic, biting scent of blood, no scream of fear or pain, no blinding green light of _Avada Kedavra. _Just one blank moment of nothingness. Where's the proof, the wolf had asked.

_The proof,_ Remus had replied, _the proof is that half my soul has been ripped away._

The wolf understood this. _Yes,_ it had said. _Padfoot is gone._

_Yes,_ Remus agreed, and quickly clenched his jaw so that the primitive, lupine howl did not escape. The metallic taste of blood stung his tongue: _this is what death is like. Cruel, bloody, and ruthless. A bitter, addictive taste that remains on your tongue until the wound clots._

**No longer mourn for me when I am dead**

**Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell**

* * *

It had all started in the beginning of seventh year. Sirius had decided, over the previous summer, after being disowned rather dramatically and the subsequent renting of his own flat, to switch from divination (which he really wasn't horrible at; he was a creative student/prankster, after all) to muggle studies. It was really just an act of flat rebellion against his muggle-hating, bigoted, pure-blooded heritage, but Sirius found that even disregarding the rebellious nature of the course, it was pretty neat. He _liked_ the class. He liked the strange trends of the muggles, the stereotypes of the decades, the concept of electricity (toasters were, in Sirius' opinion, especially fascinating). He liked the music and the movies and the _telly_. Wizards didn't have cinema, and Sirius was enraptured by the moving muggles in the little black box. Most of the daytime show plots were hokey; they were more the thing Remus would enjoy, ever the lover of drama and romance. Pretty paradoxical, Sirius would think, considering Remus had a raging beast inside him. Then again, Remus himself was a paradox: a beast inside an angel. The ever calm, quiet, beautiful Remus, transforming into the unpredictable and wild Moony once a month.

Yes, Sirius eventually admitted, so he was fascinated – enamored, really – by his friend, as well. The telly and muggle music were his secondary loves.

Remus himself, of course, was totally oblivious. The young man was as perceptive as they come concerning others' affairs, but with his own, he was hopelessly unaware.

_Remus chuckled, remembering. Ah, the naïveté of youth._

At any rate, on Valentine's Day that year, Remus had received a Valentine, inexplicably. It wasn't strange that he had _received _one, really: what was strange, though, was that it was a sonnet. Not a dirty limerick, not a cute little cinquain, but an actual sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet: Sonnet 20, actually, if Remus wasn't mistaken. He checked later, in his large Shakespeare volume. Sonnet 20, indeed.

It was an unusual choice for a Valentine. Not only was it a Shakespearean sonnet – of all things! – but it was sonnet _twenty_. Either someone didn't know their Shakespeare, or he had a very romantic, very _male_ admirer. Remus examined the small, rectangular piece of expensive paper.

_A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted  
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;  
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted  
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;  
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,  
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;  
A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,  
Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.  
And for a woman wert thou first created;  
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,  
And by addition me of thee defeated,  
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.  
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,  
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure._

Remus wasn't gay. He wasn't straight, either. He was a werewolf, and could not, by law, 'propagate' with humans. Remus would take love and affection from anyone: not that he was desperate, mind you; just a realist. And, well, it didn't hurt that he liked to believe in romantic ideals such as "love without bounds" every once and a while. Everyone needs something to believe in.

Well, Remus thought, his admirer was right about one thing – he should've been a girl. Hell, he was feminine enough: delicate cheekbones, fine hair, soft facial lines, and a slender frame. Remus had always despised his certain femininity with a passion. Why couldn't he be more masculine; a roguish fellow with a strong jaw, like Sirius?

Sirius.

_Remus, an old, thirty-something Remus, sighed. Even after years in Azkaban, Sirius' hair had a strength, a thickness, that Remus had always envied, the shallow young man that he was. Sirius' hair was like Sirius himself – truly resilient and strong, no matter how matted and defeated it might seem. Remus fingered his own jaw, and ran his hands through limp hair. Some things really never changed. Sirius would always be beautiful, in Remus' eyes, even with a gaunt figure, newly crooked nose – like Snivellus'! – and haunted, dull eyes._

**Give warning to the world that I am fled**

**From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell**

The next day, February fifteenth, of seventh year, Sirius came running up to him with flushed cheeks and excitement dancing in his eyes. "Moony! Hey! Wait up!"

Remus paused, and shifted the large stack of books under his arm. "Yes?"

Sirius seemed to be bursting with barely-contained energy, and his eyes had a peculiar, crafty glint. "I need your help with a Muggle Studies project." Remus raised an eyebrow; _Umm? _"Since you read so much muggle literature, you know," Sirius added.

"Okay?"

Sirius took this as a signal to continue. "You know William Shakespeare? Brilliant muggle poet?"

"I do," Remus said, warily. He didn't mention the fact that he seemed to have a Shakespearean admirer, and since he was not necessarily a particularly perceptive person, he failed to catch the badly hidden satisfaction in Sirius' triumphant eyes.

"You read him a lot?" Remus looked inquisitively at his questioner. "You know... have you read many of his poems or plays?"

"I'm rather fond of his sonnets..." Remus paused. "Why?"

"Um, well," Sirius rocked back and forth on his heels, "I'm suppose to analyze a sonnet and say what it reveals about Muggle society or traditions. Since you know so much about things like that..." He looked pleadingly at his friend, and Remus found he simply couldn't resist the puppy-dog eyes.

"Yes, all right, fine, I'll help you Pads," he sighed. "Which sonnet?" Remus went on to ask, but Sirius had already turned and begun to walk away, yelling over his soulder that he was about to be late for class.

**Nay, if you read this line, remember not**

**The hand that writ it; for I love you so**

They agreed to meet a week later, up in the Astronomy tower (in hindsight, Remus should have been suspicious of said meeting place). Remus had managed to lug his gargantuan encyclopedia of Shakespearean works all the way up to the tower; however, it turned out to be for naught, as Sirius had brought all that was required: a small piece of expensive-looking paper, on which something was written, rested conspicuously in his hand. He was lounging quietly on the windowsill, something that had always caused Remus some consternation.

There was a little prickling feeling in the back of his neck, as if a thousand tiny needles had been gently dragged across the sensitive skin. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, an tiny alarm went off.

Ignoring his inner intuition, Remus set his large volume down on the floor, and quietly went over to his friend. "Shall we get started?" He said softly, laying a hand on Sirius' shoulder.

The dark-haired Gryffindor started. "Oh... right. Sure, Moony." He swung his legs off the sill, a shy smile dancing across his lips. It seemed foreign on him, just like the wolf seemed foreign to Remus. "Here's the poem I picked out," he said, and handed the folded piece of parchment over to his friend.

"Oh?" Remus murmured, opening it. As soon as saw the first lines, he gasped.

_A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted..._

There was a tense silence. Then:

"Padfoot?"

"Yes?" Sirius was fiddling with his fingers. It didn't fail to register with Remus that that, too, was a highly uncharacteristic habit of his friend.

The paper was the exact same brand as Remus' valentine. Either Fate was playing a strange trick on him, or Sirius...

"Did you... send any valentines this year?"

"Yep, one." A lopsided, doggy smile. Now that was more like the Padfoot he knew.

Remus bit his lip, and stared straight into his friend's eyes, his heart a wild drum in his chest. "May I ask to whom?"

Sirius chuckled. "'To whom, to whom'... you've certainly picked up a few pointers from Shakespeare. Then again, so've I." The curves of Remus' face were immediately brushed with a pink paintbrush, and the color was only accentuated by the pale moonlight streaming in through the window. It was one of those moments in one's life that are so cliché, and yet so _real_. It was one of those moments which makes you strive for truth and worship beauty and believe in love, because how can there not be love and truth and beauty when all those things are standing in front of you and making your heart beat _this fast, see?_

And Remus' heart was beating just as fast, Sirius discovered, when moments later they were embracing one another tightly and silently and joyfully.

**That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot**

**If thinking on me should make you woe.**

Ever since then, Sirius had been prone to giving Remus little slips of paper with poems inscribed on them whenever it was his fancy. Sometimes there was a sensible reason as to why Remus found one under his pillow, or folded between the pages of his Defense textbook: Valentine's Day was a favorite of Sirius', as well were particularly harsh full moons. But often Remus would discover one tucked away in his sock drawer, or – this was one of the werewolf's favorite means – Sirius would slip one into the back pocket of Remus' pants during an illicit snogging session. Always the same type and brand of paper: cream-colored, with a fine texture; and always the same script: Sirius' slanted, narrow scratch which somehow made the poetry seem all the more sensual.

It was always Shakespeare, too. It went from romantic soliloquies on love to angsty ramblings on death... And Remus always kept them, hoarding them like the slips of paper from fortune cookies, so that the beautiful promises of the sonnets might someday come true. Stupid, he knew... but in everyone there's a small part that loves, no, _yearns _to defy logic in the face of emotion, and Remus was no exception.

There was only one time Remus could remember that the little slip of paper was entirely devoid of flowery, romantic poetry. Ever since then, Remus had never been able to see those notes in quite the same light. After that, Sirius' script never seemed _quite_ as beautiful, and the costly paper never quite as soft and silky. The entire experience was distorted, from that one time; it was prostituted to hate and thus forever stained.

On that November first morning so many years ago, Remus had awoken – alone – to find another small note in his palm. Blearily smiling, he stretched happily in the clear and crisp morning light. Fall was his favorite season; so many smells and colors. His sharpened lupine senses enjoyed the discovery of these new sensations and sights. The wolf was like a child in candyland, and unusually puppy-like, too busy occupying itself with nature's treats to subject Remus to its typical unrestrained rage.

He traced the soft edges of the parchment, happily immersed in memory, before opening it with soft anticipation.

I LOVE Y

Was all there was, in thick, loud, unfeeling capitals. It wasn't even finished, and at once Remus instinctively knew that something was wrong. The message was coarse in hard emotion, and upon closer inspection Remus saw a small tear in the paper where the last letter was scrawled.

His heart sank with a violent plunge, and Remus involuntarily clutched his chest, as if trying to wrench the feeling from his heart. He stumbled out of bed and clumsily flew into the kitchen of the flat. _Their_ flat.

The room was empty. "Um, Siri?" Remus called out. "You home, love?" No answer. _Maybe he's at work?_

Just as Remus was about to floo over to the local Auror headquarters, an owl frantically flew in through the one open window of the flat. Its wings batted around wildly before it managed to settle on the thin windowsill. It carried the _Prophet _tightly in its claws.

Remus took the paper from the owl, noting in the back of his mind that the owl was about two hours late. This was never a good sign; it usually meant something had happened in the dead of night and they had to delay the daily distribution to write it up.

Remus flipped the paper open as he reached for an orange sitting in a basket.

**DARK LORD DEFEATED BY BOY-WHO-LIVED!**

And underneath,

**ATTACK ON POTTER FAMILY, MURDERER SIRIUS BLACK ON RUN!**

The fruit dropped from Remus' white hands and landed on the floor with finality.

The neighbors would always say, years later, that they had never in their lives heard a more chilling sound than the primitive howling coming from the next-door flat that fateful morning.

**O, if, I say, you look upon this verse**

**When I perhaps compounded am with clay**

For the next thirteen years, Sirius Black was dead to Remus Lupin. He was a figment of an overactive imagination, a hallucination spurred by highly concentrated wolfsbane solution.

Remus' only true lovers for over a decade was alcohol – as strong as he could manage to get; Firewhisky did nothing for him, anymore – and drugs. Since his werewolf metabolism was much faster than a normal human's, Remus could feel the effects of the substances very quickly, but they also wore off more quickly than they should. Thus Remus required constant inebriation, a flask constantly by his side. Luckily, there was an advantage to his Lupine side: most people couldn't tell that Remus was intoxicated. He didn't get as giddy as other drunks, or as sluggish and morose as other wizarding druggies. He just became numb, a frozen version of what he once was.

_Remus smiled ironically, despite the memories. He remembered the day, years later, when Harry had told him his initial impression of the Defense Professor: a poor, weary drunk, sleeping off his latest binge._

_He didn't have the heart to tell Harry that he'd been right._

Those years passed in a soundless purple haze, and Remus retained very few memories of them. Whether by choice or by simple inability, he didn't know.

He'd thought his asceticism had wrenched his love for Sirius out of his heart and body, and he was glad of it.

But he didn't know how wrong he'd been.

Sirius suddenly, unexpectedly arisen, as if from the dead, and Remus found his heart could still pound as quickly as before. He could _hear_ again, hear his own _heart_ again. Once again Remus himself was alive, alive with stolen kisses and sounds of love and the _notes, _the_ Notes,_ again and...

...And just two years later he died again. Along with Sirius. But he knew, he knew deep down inside himself with such strong certainty it pained him and broke him and killed him, that this time Sirius wasn't ever coming back.

But at least – at least there was Harry. Harry, who no longer caused Remus pain every time he saw the boy. Life wasn't a dark vague cloud again, as Remus had expected. Somehow he managed to survive without accidentally (or on purpose?) killing himself.

**Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.**

**But let your love even with my life decay**

_Remus sighed._

_The last Note he'd ever gotten... sonnet seventy-one. It was as if it'd been a sign of what was to come: what would happen the very next day, and the months afterward._

When he'd received it, he had looked at Sirius with an incredulous expression.

"Oh, come now love," Remus had protested. "You know I'll die first. It's just another part of my furry little problem." They'd both smiled at the reference, although Sirius' was noticeably sadder.

"Yes but – Moony – with all that's been going on lately, I just want you to be... I just wanted you to know that."

"I could never have another, Siri, you should know that."

The convict just smiled away his lover's objections. "Remus, you have to promise me you won't just wither away like..." he hesitated. "Like last time." The couple had had many an argument over the damaging habits Remus had relied upon during those thirteen years.

Remus pressed his lips together tightly; Sirius tried to ignore it. _Cute, Moony. Very cute._

"F... Fine."

"Promise?"

The werewolf rolled his light amber eyes. "I promise, Padfoot." He tucked the Note into the back pocket of his worn muggle jeans.

He got a gorgeous bright grin in return.

* * *

Bringing himself back from the memories, Remus looked around his drab flat. It was conspicuously un-lived in, as he'd been 'underground' for a while, doing confidential work for Albus. There were a few homey touches, though, despite his absence... Remus knew where those had come from; the daffodils in the clear glass vase, the lilac and lavender potpourri. And, of course, a small neon pink post-it note (strange muggle contraption, that), with, _Take care Remus! Love, Tonks_

_Sirius would be proud of me. Keeping my promise... for him. _

He exhaled deeply... and, after a moment of mental wrangling, retraced his steps back into his study.

Withdrawing the key from the wastebasket into which it had been thrown, he fingered it carefully. Licking his lips, Remus inserted the key into the old desk, this time to open it.

The Last Note, Sonnet 71, was still there, a broken piece of the past still hidden away behind reminders of the present. A remnant of what used to be covered by what is...

But never to be forgotten, oh, no.

**Lest the wise world should look into your moan**

**And mock you with me after I am gone.**

"_I promise, Padfoot."_ _I promise to take another. I promise not to mourn. I promise to stop loving you._

But maybe some promises, Remus reflected, were never meant to be kept.

_Fin._

* * *

**A/N: This is my attempt at explaining the Remus/Tonks thing (shudder), and also at giving Remus/Sirius another chance. Sonnet 71 is, obviously, the work of William Shakespeare, brilliant man that he was. I hope the subtext isn't too vague and/or subtle! Feedback is greatly appreciated (yearned for, in fact). Er... yes. Review, please:)**


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